National parks, natural beauty and a bit of Disney Wonder! VANCOUVER SECTION COMPLETED - Page 4 - PassPorter - A Community of Walt Disney World, Disneyland, Disney Cruise Line, and General Travel Forums
As of January 1, 2019, we have closed our forums. This is a decision we did not come to lightly, but it is necessary. The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk. The server software itself must be updated, and it cannot be without removing the forums.
So it is with a heavy heart that we say goodbye to our long-running forums. They came online in 2000 and brought together so many wonderful Disney fans. We had friendships form, careers launch, couples marry, children born ... all because of this amazing community.
Thank you to each of you who were a part of this community. You made it possible.
And a very special thank you to our Guides (moderators), past and present, who kept our forums a happy place to be. You are the glue that held everything together, and we are forever grateful to you. Thank you aliceinwdw, Caldercup, MrsM, WillCAD, Fortissimo, GingerJ, HiddenMickey, CRCrazy, Eeyoresmom, disneyknut, disneydani, Cam22, chezp, WDWfan, Luvsun, KMB733, rescuesk, OhToodles!, Colexis Mom, lfredsbo, HiddenMickey, DrDolphin, DopeyGirl, duck addict, Disneybine, PixieMichele, Sandra Bostwick, Eeyore Tattoo, DyanKJ130, Suzy Q'Disney, LilMarcieMouse, AllisonG, Belle*, Chrissi, Brant, DawnDenise, Crystalloubear, Disneymom9092, FanOfMickey, Goofy4Goofy, GoofyMom, Home4us123, iamgrumpy, ilovedisney247, Jennifer2003, Jenny Pooh, KrisLuvsDisney, Ladyt, Laughaholic88, LauraBelle Hime, Lilianna, LizardCop, Loobyoxlip, lukeandbrooksmom, marisag, michnash, MickeyMAC, OffKilter_Lynn, PamelaK, Poor_Eeyore, ripkensnana, RobDVC, SHEANA1226, Shell of the South, snoozin, Statelady01, Tara O'Hara, tigger22, Tink and Co., Tinkerbelz, WDWJAMBA, wdwlovers, Wendyismyname, whoSEZ, WildforWD, and WvuGrrrl. You made the magic.
We want to personally thank Sara Varney, who coordinated our community for many years (among so many other things she did for us), and Cheryl Pendry, our Message Board Manager who helped train our Guides, and Ginger Jabour, who helped us with the PassPorter-specific forums and Live! Guides. Thank you for your time, energy, and enthusiasm. You made it all happen.
There are other changes as well.
Why? Well, the world has changed. And change with it, we must. The lyrics to "We Go On" for IllumiNations say it best:
We go on to the joy and through the tears
We go on to discover new frontiers
Moving on with the current of the years.
We go on
Moving forward now as one
Moving on with a spirit born to run
Ever on with each rising sun.
To a new day, we go on.
It's time to move on and move forward.
PassPorter is a small business, and for many years it supported our family. But the world changed, print books took a backseat to the Internet, and for a long time now it has been unable to make ends meet. We've had to find new ways to support our family, which means new careers and less and less time available to devote to our first baby, PassPorter.
But eventually, we must move on and move forward. It is the right thing to do.
So we are retiring this newsletter, as we simply cannot keep up with it. Many thanks to Mouse Fan Travel who supported it all these years, to All Ears and MousePlanet who helped us with news, to our many article contributors, and -- most importantly -- to Sara Varney who edited our newsletter so wonderfully for years and years.
And we are no longer charging for the Live Guides. If you have a subscription, it's yours to keep for the lifetime of the Live Guides at no additional cost. The Live Guides will stay online, barring server issues and technical problems, for all of 2019.
That said, PassPorter is not going away. Most of the resources will remain online for as long as we can support them, and after that we will find ways to make whatever we can available. PassPorter means a great deal to us, and to many of you, and we will do our best to keep it alive in whatever way we can. Our server costs are high, and they'll need to come out of our pockets, so in the future you can expect some changes so we can bring those costs down.
Thank you, thank you, thank you for your amazing support over the years. Without you, there's no way us little guys could have made something like this happen and given the "big guys" a run for their money. PassPorter was consistently the #3 guidebook after the Unofficial and Official guides, which was really unheard of for such a small company to do. We ROCKED it thanks to you and your support and love!
If you miss us, you can still find some of us online. Sara started a new blog at DisneyParkPrincess.com -- I strongly urge you to visit and get on her mailing list. She IS the Disney park princess and knows Disney backward and forward. And I am blogging as well at JenniferMaker.com, which is a little craft blog I started a couple of years ago to make ends meet. You can see and hear me in my craft show at https://www.youtube.com/c/jennifermaker . Many PassPorter readers and fans are on Facebook, in groups they formed like the PassPorter Trip Reports and PassPorter Crafting Challenge (if you join, just let them know you read about it in the newsletter). And some of our most devoted community members started a forum of their own at Pixie Dust Lane and all are invited over.
So we encourage you to stay in touch with us and your fellow community members wherever works best for you!
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Love the park pictures. What a beautiful place. The totem poles are really neat.
I had a laugh at Mark's "flexible freind" as my first thought was...shouldn't that be you!
Just chiming in....Love your photos of the Pan Pacific. You got some great shots of the lobby. I tried getting a good shot of the waterfall, but just couldn't get the angle right.
I can confirm that our room was configured much differently than yours and my DSis and DBiL's room was different still. I did notice on the fire escape plan that many rooms appear to be long and rectangular, but that there are several other configurations as well.
Glad you found breakfast at the food court. We had the breakfast buffet each of our 3 mornings at the Pan Pacific -but it came with our room. The offer we booked was book one room at full price, get a second room for half price and the breakfast buffet was included every day for each person in both rooms. Now I know we got a pretty good deal. It was a very good breakfast with some of the best fresh fruit I've had in ages. Don't know if I would have paid $35 each for it, though. That would have been over $100 for my family of three !!! Oh, and the chocolate croissants were .
I have to thank you for getting a picture of that building with the words. We wondered what it said, but never got close enough to read it. Now I don't have to wonder.
Having toured Stanley Park myself, I'm guessing that you have many more fabulous pictures to share . Can't wait to see more. It is a beautiful park (and a beautiful city). I'm going to enjoy revisiting it via your TR.
The pan pacific looks like a beautiful hotel, after hearing about it in a few TR's it definitely seems like the perfect choice when in that neck of the woods. Love the Vancouver pictures - what a beautiful city.
The Totem Poles are great--I just love seeing them--it's a great part of history! I'm going to guess that the reason the rooms are all different sizes and shapes at the Pan Pacific is that it wasn't built as a hotel, but converted at a later date--we have quite a few in New Orleans that used to be office buildings and the shape of the existing walls had to be worked around!
Stanley Park is so pretty! The totem poles are very interesting. I would love to have gardens that look 1/10th as good as those! Hmm, I might be inspired to go do some pruning this weekend....
Love the park pictures. What a beautiful place. The totem poles are really neat.
I had a laugh at Mark's "flexible freind" as my first thought was...shouldn't that be you!
Oh my! Over here, a "flexible friend" is your credit card - something to do with the MasterCard adverts back in the 80s....
Just chiming in....Love your photos of the Pan Pacific. You got some great shots of the lobby. I tried getting a good shot of the waterfall, but just couldn't get the angle right.
I can confirm that our room was configured much differently than yours and my DSis and DBiL's room was different still. I did notice on the fire escape plan that many rooms appear to be long and rectangular, but that there are several other configurations as well.
Glad you found breakfast at the food court. We had the breakfast buffet each of our 3 mornings at the Pan Pacific -but it came with our room. The offer we booked was book one room at full price, get a second room for half price and the breakfast buffet was included every day for each person in both rooms. Now I know we got a pretty good deal. It was a very good breakfast with some of the best fresh fruit I've had in ages. Don't know if I would have paid $35 each for it, though. That would have been over $100 for my family of three !!! Oh, and the chocolate croissants were .
I have to thank you for getting a picture of that building with the words. We wondered what it said, but never got close enough to read it. Now I don't have to wonder.
Having toured Stanley Park myself, I'm guessing that you have many more fabulous pictures to share . Can't wait to see more. It is a beautiful park (and a beautiful city). I'm going to enjoy revisiting it via your TR.
Wow, you did get a good deal at the Pan Pacific!
Glad I could help with the wording on the building - we were very lucky that the bus stopped at traffic lights, so I could get a close-up of it.
The Totem Poles are great--I just love seeing them--it's a great part of history! I'm going to guess that the reason the rooms are all different sizes and shapes at the Pan Pacific is that it wasn't built as a hotel, but converted at a later date--we have quite a few in New Orleans that used to be office buildings and the shape of the existing walls had to be worked around!
That's certainly possible, although it looked pretty new. Maybe that's how they wanted it to be? I don't know much about the Pan Pacific chain, but it's certainly a unique selling point....
Monday 29 August – part three: it’s a bit of a walk, but not too much....
Finished with photos there, we walked through to the seawall and were pleasantly surprised at how quickly we made it, so Joy and I figured that we’d walk along the seawall to Prospect Point, which was the next pick-up point for the trolley. We knew it was by the Lions Gate Bridge, which we could see in the distance and it looks a bit of a walk, but not too much... at least that’s what we thought anyway...
But first we had to get another group photo and you can probably tell from the result that Mark only just made it in time into shot! I love Joy’s expression in this, as I think Mark had just bowled into her as it was taken.
We set off walking, getting photos as we went along. It was funny the way we walked, sometimes the guys would be way in front and, at other times, it would be the girls out in front.
On the way, we found what we thought, from a distance, was a mermaid, but : nothing is ever that simple. It was apparently a girl in a wetsuit.
Then we came across this wonderful dragon head, which made for some wonderful shots...
We also found Canadian geese (as one of our drivers later said “if you want to take any home, please do!” ) and a heron....
Soon, we were nearing the bridge and realised that we’d have to climb upwards to get to Prospect Point. There was a bit of debate about how best to do it, but we opted for following the road, reasoning that the trolley would have to take that route as well. We did see one on the way up, but despite our best efforts to persuade him to pull over and take us, he wouldn’t.
So we kept walking, going upwards. In fairness, it was a fairly gentle slope, but it was a gentle slope for about a mile in total... On the way, we saw a few sights to make life a bit easier...
.. but in fairness, when we finally got to the top and got some views of the bridge, I think it’s fair to say that we were all shattered.
Around the corner, we found civilisation...
... with some wonderful views across the water. Despite how exhausted we were, I certainly almost immediately forgot all about that and concentrated on what I was seeing in front of me, as it was absolutely beautiful.
We did get this classic group shot. The idea is it’s leaning, because we all were by then... at least that’s our story and we’re sticking to it!
Next: there’s nothing to stop you falling into the water!
Oh my! Over here, a "flexible friend" is your credit card - something to do with the MasterCard adverts back in the 80s....
I'll blame my mind going in the gutter on my DH. He always is making corny jokes like that to me.
That park is just gorgeous. Wow. I would love to be set free with my camera there! And to have my tripod with me would be even better (and he's not so flexible, so a pain to carry)
Those bridge shots are really amazing as well.
Skip and I have talked about going to the Grand Canyon one of these years. I hope we do, because I think I could get some great shots there. But now I know if I ever can talk him into an Alaskan cruise to go a day early!
What a glorious view you had after your walk. I'm so enjoying this part of your trip report, I (almost) don't want it to end--but I AM anxious to see your perspective of Alsaka from aboard the ship.
Have a great rest of the weekend!
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. Can't wait to see more. It is a beautiful park (and a beautiful city). I'm going to enjoy revisiting it via your TR.
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with that!
Over here, a "flexible friend" is your credit card - something to do with the MasterCard adverts back in the 80s....
: nothing is ever that simple. It was apparently a girl in a wetsuit. 
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